Partner Issues, Small Law Firms

Show Good Lawyerly Judgment: Hire Professionals (Like Accountants) To Do Their Work Better Than You Ever Could Do It

Lawyers should not be the only ones providing professional services to their law offices’ operations.

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Lawyers should not be the only ones providing professional services to their law offices’ operations.

We lawyers think we’re smart, but doctors are smarter than lawyers.

Well, at least they certainly think they are, even if we might dispute that. But one thing we cannot dispute is that doctors certainly are wiser in how they manage their largest institutions—hospitals—compared to how we manage our own offices, large or small. Although in hospitals there are always physician heads of departments, the actual administration of the hospital is left to professional managers, often those with training in management.

We, instead, at our law offices, especially the largest ones, have executive committees, and management committees, and hiring committees, and technology committees, and grand-high-exalted-mystic-ruler committees, and all of that, with such committees almost always consisting exclusively of lawyers (especially any with “grand” or “high” in the name).

I’ve written before that we should hire managers as full-time professional staff as soon as we can. We do this at our firm.  But the best managers of law offices know that running their operations well goes beyond simply hiring one or more professional managers. We need as well to hire and engage outside and other employee professionals—absolutely starting with accountants—in order to run our offices as best we can.

Lawyers like to think that they can do everything well.  We are trained learners and generally diligent and patient enough to figure out a lot. But we cannot do everything well, and we certainly cannot do the work of other professionals as well as those professionals can do their own work. As such, we should do what our clients do when we think they are being smart and seeking a lawyer’s services when they have a legal problem: defer to the professional.  Seek out the professional accountant or tech guy or human resources person to solve problems or address law office needs rather than have your legal staff figure out how they can do it.

It is remarkable how frequently lawyers do non-lawyer work in their firms, from general accounting, to purchasing of IT equipment, to hiring all staff (even if such staff does non-legal work). We have to stop it. Lawyers need to run the cases, of course. And lawyers need to be the owners and end managers (like those physicians who head their departments). But lawyers should hire outside or internal professionals when they can.

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The question of when and which professional comes down, obviously, to need and financial ability. I’m not saying a three-lawyer shop should hire a full-time IT person (though strongly consider having an IT professional on call rather than have the techiest of the three lawyers set up your server). And if you don’t have money in the bank, don’t hire someone. But do not use the excuse “a lawyer can do it” not to hire someone.

A lawyer very likely can do it. But another professional can do it better. Be the good manager, exhibit the prudence to which we are supposed to aspire, and hire or engage those to do the job for your law office that they were trained to do.

John Balestriere is an entrepreneurial trial lawyer who founded his firm after working as a prosecutor and litigator at a small firm. He is a partner at trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.

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